


Dawn of Redeeming Grace

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: Twelve Fics of Christmas 2020 [11]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Body Worship, Character Study, Drabble - no dialogue, Implied Sexual Content (non-explicit), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Tattoos, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28261995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: This is everything they’ve never known they needed.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart
Series: Twelve Fics of Christmas 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043328
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	Dawn of Redeeming Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Christmas Eve-Eve!! This one was probably among my favorites to write this year, so please enjoy. Comments and kudos are love!
> 
> Title from "Silent Night".

It’s beautiful.

The snow, of course: a dancing flurry of fat flakes swirling outside the frosted windowpanes, barely visible against a black velvet night sky. But also Len’s skin: a scrapbook of scars telling the story of a hellish youth – old bullet holes and knife wounds and the jagged evidence of broken beer bottles intersecting everywhere from his chest to stomach to hips and thighs – and a myriad of gloss-black tattoos telling stories of their own, from the ornate trio of snowflakes at his right shoulder to the wolf’s head howling across his left shoulder blade.

Barry’s hands move in nonsensical patterns across the ornate canvas of flesh, tracing the inked detail of a lily at Len’s hip – specifically the woman’s name etched within the elegantly winding vines whose identity Barry doesn’t know but suspects – and the remnants of a beer bottle where it ripped into Len’s lower abdomen and left a ridge of ruined skin. The tension hasn’t entirely left the older man’s limbs, but has since faded to a wary presence rather than earlier, when Barry’s hands first wandered under the thick black sweater, found a collection of cigarette burns, and Len’s entire body locked up as if made of stone.

Words, ultimately, are a wasted effort when actions can do so much better, and so Barry simply kept his hands moving, examining in covetous strokes, and never took his eyes off Len’s – until he shifted slightly down on the thick bedspread and pressed his lips to the abdomen scar. Then Len hauled him back up by a hand on his neck and crushed their mouths together for a kiss. Their first kiss, and it was everything Barry never knew he needed.

The bedside lamp casts a shadow play across the walls, almost more intimate than the touch of Barry’s hands on Len’s skin, and reflects in the man’s blue eyes to make them seem both brighter and darker. Staring down at him, shoulders loosely draped in the pale blue cotton of Barry’s sheets, Len looks like he’s never seen anything like Barry. Like Barry is the only thing he can see or ever wants to see again. His mouth opens, throat contracting though no words come out, and Barry lifts a hand to stroke fingertips over the parted lips. Len’s eyes immediately fall closed as he tips into the touch, kissing a lazy path to Barry’s wrist before sucking a small dark mark on the skin there.

One hand drags the length of Len’s back and settles between his shoulders. Len concedes and lowers to his elbows first, then the length of one forearm, and finally allows himself to be enfolded entirely within longing arms – longing for this, longer than either of them would likely ever admit, longing for the texture of Len’s scars against Barry’s unmarred flesh, longing for the promise of safety in a moment of raw vulnerability.

Atop the pillow, Len’s fingers ascend soft cotton to entwine with his, and Barry releases a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.


End file.
